Apple’s long-rumored smart home display is starting to look less like a rumor and more like a product with a ship date. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the device will be called HomeView and should reach customers around mid-November. That would be several weeks after its expected unveiling at Apple’s “Welcome Home” event on 13 October.
The basic idea has been reported for a while: a roughly 6-inch square touchscreen that sits on a counter or mounts on a wall and acts as the control panel for locks, thermostats, speakers and other connected devices. It is also expected to recognize household members as they approach and show personalized information from their messages, calendars, contacts and notes. Video calls, music playback and an intercom feature have also been reported.
The new details suggest Apple has picked a deliberately narrow approach. HomeView will reportedly use an A18 chip, the processor from the iPhone 16. It will come in two versions: a countertop model with a metal speaker base in space gray, silver, starlight and pink, and a flatter wall-mounted version in space gray and silver. The bigger surprise is software. Rather than letting people treat it as a cheap iPad stuck to the wall, Apple will reportedly design HomeView mainly around Siri and offer no App Store, just a small set of Apple’s own apps.
That is a risky bet. Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s Nest Hub have spent years showing that voice-first home displays can work, but also how quickly they can feel limited when the assistant falls short. Apple is building HomeView around Siri at the same time as it rebuilds Siri with new AI features. If those upgrades are not good enough, a device that depends heavily on voice control will feel the impact first.
HomeView also looks like the centerpiece of a much wider push into the home. Apple is reportedly working with LG on an Apple Home Collection that includes a video doorbell, deadbolt, thermostat, temperature sensor, indoor and outdoor cameras and a floodlight camera. LG would reportedly handle manufacturing and support, while Apple shapes how the products work with its ecosystem. A refreshed HomePod mini with an S10 chip and a new Apple TV with an A19 are reportedly due on 30 October, giving the speaker its first chip upgrade in nearly six years.
Apple has dabbled in the smart home for over a decade without ever really owning it. Pricing for HomeView is still unknown, and so is how well it will work with non-Apple devices. Those two factors, more than the hardware, will decide whether HomeView finally changes that.
